Central Region director of National Registration Bureau (NRB), Kiragu Ndirangu is recommending an increase in the fee charged to Kenyans for replacing their lost Identity Cards.
Mr Ndirangu says that the Sh100 charged for the service has not deterred residents in the central region from failing to collect their IDs once the bureau processes them.
Currently 60,688 ID cards are lying unclaimed at various county and sub-county NRBs and Huduma Centres in the region.
Out of these 37,082 are duplicate IDs whose owners are yet to collect. A further analysis of the data released by the bureau shows that 20,459 men compared to 16,623 women had failed to collect their duplicated IDs. Ndirangu admitted that much as the bureau did not have a mechanism of flagging multiple applications for ID replacement, a price hike would discourage those seeking the service from abandoning their ID’s at the registration bureaus.
“The amount we charge is so little, perhaps that is why some people make multiple applications in multiple stations. I believe if the charges were a bit higher the applicants would make a deliberate effort to collect their IDs,” said Ndirangu in an interview with KNA.
Overall, out of the five counties that constitute NRB’s central region, Kiambu County has the highest number of uncollected IDs with 32,207, Murang’a County 9,344, Nyandarua has 8,266, Kirinyaga has 5,874 while Nyeri County has 4,997 uncollected ID’s.
At the same time, he said that the NRB was in possession of 23,606 first application uncollected IDs dating from as early as June this year. Ndirangu said that to reduce the backlog, the bureau would be collaborating with the chiefs and Nyumba Kumi elders to deliver their IDs.
“Our main challenge is storage space because if we have a high number of uncollected IDs then we won’t have enough space for new ones. We have spoken with chiefs and our officers are utilizing the chief barazas to urge members of the public to come pick their documents,” he said.
Ndirangu also reassured all Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) candidates who applied for IDs in school that the document will be ready for collection from their respective schools once the national examinations are released. He said that plans were already in place to ensure that the head teachers issue the IDs alongside the KCSE result slips.
By Wangari Mwangi
